Getting Creative with Disney Paint

Last week, my husband and I did something we swore we wouldn’t do: We painted another room. Did I mention we’re renters? Yeah. And we’ve already painted the dining room and our daughter’s room, so we’re going to have a lot of un-painting to do when we move out — or a big fee to pay. But what can I say? When Walmart gives you an opportunity to try out Disney low-VOC paint, you take it, and decide what to paint later. (aff)

This time, our third bedroom, also known as “the boys’ room” or the “man cave” got some special treatment. And boy, did it need some special treatment.

My stepsons are only with us for the summers and a few other weeks a year, so the rest of the time, that room had become the junk room. The place where we’d randomly put stuff until we could figure out a permanent spot for them.

That wasn’t working for us. At all. So we cleared it out and got to painting.

We received two colors to try: Half Pipe (blue) and Making Tracks (gray). I promise you, it took us two days just to figure out how to use the colors. We debated doing a loose, organic wave treatment on the wall, taping off an intricate pattern, and about a dozen other ideas before we finally decided to just do something simple and do a single gray stripe through the middle of two blue blocks.

To accomplish this, we first painted the middle of the wall gray. This paint has very little smell, awesome coverage and it dries pretty quickly. In no time, we’d done two light coats of gray.

Next, we taped off the gray on top and bottom, knowing we’d overlap the blue on the jagged edges and the tape and wind up with a clean, seamless line from blue to gray and back.

The trick was to make sure the gray was fully dry before taping it off, because if it had been wet, we could’ve pulled off some of the paint when we pulled the tape. The other trick was pulling the tape while the blue was still a bit tacky. This will give you clean edges, as dry paint on top of the tape can inadvertently pull some paint off the wall if you wait until it’s all fully dry.

The final result:

Finally, we had to pull the rest of the room together.

When we first moved into this apartment, we bought the bunk bed on Craigslist and invested in some great organic bedding from West Elm when it was on steep discount.

But there are 3 boys — not 2. So we also invested in a twin sized air mattress that rests on a frame up off the floor. This makes it the height of a regular bed, but gives us the option of taking the bed down when the boys aren’t here so we can use the room as a guest room, often with a queen sized air bed for adult guests.

I’d also been collecting small details for the room. Some art, a pair of great, eco-friendly animal hooks:

And a map world map my husband loves to use for impromptu geography lessons:

It was a happy accident that the map fit perfectly on top of the gray stripe.

Overall, we loved the paint. It is no-VOC before colorants, and low-VOC with them added. It has almost no smell, though we still opened the window in the room just as a precaution. I was more than comfortable letting my daughter help with the painting. It provided great coverage with a thick first coat and a light second coat just to even it out. We have a lot of paint left, so I’m debating how I can use it to do something fun on a non-permanent surface, like a piece of furniture or a canvas. The paint is available now at Walmart, if you’d like to try it yourself.

We’re really happy with the colors and how they round out the room. They feel like they belong in a tween/teen boys’ room, which is great, because I was worried that the blue might read a little babyish. The boys haven’t seen it yet, but I know they’ll love it once they do!

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Hey, There!

I’m Jennae Petersen, and I’m a lot of things. A wife, a mother, a graphic designer and a connosieur of beautiful things. Green Your Decor was borne of my frustration with finding beautiful things that were also eco-friendly, and inspiration to reduce my own carbon footprint and help others do the same. LEARN MORE